Thumbs at the Ready

The Department of Health and Human Services reports that children spend more than 7.5 hours daily in front of a screen which is a concern among two-thirds of parents. Even teens are beginning to recognize that they spend too much time in front of screens. Some parents are taking steps to reduce their children’s screen time and technology companies, in order to address this screen addiction, are implementing features to measure and warn people of excessive screen time.

I was recently reminded that the issue of screen time is not new. There was a time that children in particular spent hours sitting zombie-like as if in a trance within a foot of a 20 inch TV. Responsible parents in those days would admonish their children to back away from the screen for fear of damage to their eyesight. Children usually ignored these requests and the parent would just have to turn the boob tube off.  This is much harder to do these days what with the proliferation of the small screen devices such as tablets and smart phones that children as young as 3 have in their personal possession.

Say No to Social Media

The revelation regarding Facebook, reported here and elsewhere, and a collection of bad actors consisting of Cambridge Analytica, Strategic Communication Laboratories aka SCL Elections and third party apps that use Facebook’s own API developed to collect and use your personal data has, hopefully, brought to light that you are the product that is being sold for their profit. Ad revenue alone for mostly Facebook and Twitter was estimated at $41 billion worldwide in 2017 and this does not include the lucrative repeated sales of your personal data through the so-called dark web, as reported here. The ad revenue alone amounts to some $6 per year for each of the 7 billion people on this planet.

Targeted Divisiveness

Targeted divisiveness primarily refers to the use of social media by an individual or organization, especially through the use of bots, to search through user posts and profiles looking for characteristics that can be used to target that individual with multiple messages to amplify a cause that would pit one group against another. This could correctly be called propaganda. The difference nowadays with social media is the ability to target specific individuals based on self revealed preferences. Ads on social media work in much the same way except they are focused on selling a product or service.

Stop Obama’s Give Away Of U.S. Control Over The Internet

It has again come to this blogger’s attention and, I’m sure the American public that Obama wants to give away control of the Internet, specifically ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to international authorities effective on October 1, 2016 the day after it becomes independent from the US Department of Commerce.[5]

Why is Obama doing this to us?

As I’m sure you know the basis for the Internet was developed by DARPA with American taxpayer dollars and Obama can’t just give it away. It has been reported “…that Congress has passed legislation to prohibit the federal government from using tax dollars to allow the transition, and pointed out that the feds are constitutionally prohibited from transferring federal property without approval from Congress”[1]  yet Obama continues with his dictatorial powers to do just that.

Sen. Ted Cruz has pointed out that this new multistaheholder body could be used by totalitarian governments to shut down the Web around the globe, either in whole or in part. Further he has written to Commerce saying “the proposal will significantly increase the power of foreign governments over the Internet, expand ICANN’s historical core mission by creating a gateway to content regulation, and embolden [its] leadership to act without any real accountability.” [1] The most likely candidate for this foreign control is China who we know has imposed severe restrictions in their country. To make matters worse some American companies have already bought into this idea of censorship.[1] Do you want this to happen in America?

We have already heard of vulnerabilities associated with our internet dependent electric grid and with the internet of things [7] set to explode in the coming years with an IP address assigned to everything from our refrigerators to our garage door openers  all under control of this new international multistaheholder organization.

The internet is considered by some to be equivalent to a utility. In fact some would like to see it regulated and taxed in the same way as phone companies. Speaking of phones, in this new world phones will be especially vulnerable as a result of this transition since most of our phone service operates over the internet.

Think about it, would you like your utility company — electric, water, gas — to be under the control of unstable foreign countries or a consortium of foreign companies? This, dear reader, is what is going to happen to the internet.

Although this transition has been in the works for a couple of years the time now is short. Contact your elected state and federal representatives and the White House to demand a stop to this give away. DO IT TODAY!

References:
1. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/america-to-hand-off-internet-in-under-two-months/article/2599521
2. http://www.dailywire.com/news/8483/obama-about-take-over-internet-heres-everything-aaron-bandler
3. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/19/blocking_iana_transition_republican_policy/
4. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/09/obama-administration-backs-plan-to-relinquish-internet-control.html
5. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-government-to-surrender-control-of-internet-administrator-icann-a6829466.html
6. http://www.dailywire.com/news/8483/obama-about-take-over-internet-heres-everything-aaron-bandler
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things

Saying A Final Goodbye To A Career

Today I finally said goodbye to my career by cutting that last tenuous thread linking me to the world of computer technology; the shutting down of my website development business.

For the past several years I’ve held on to the fantasy that if I maintained and developed new software development skills that I would, if all else failed, again be able to earn a living in the profession or perhaps even develop the next multi-megabuck app, as they are known today. But the world of computer technology and software development has undergone enormous change and the pace of this advancement is more than any one-person can keep up with especially if you are not engaged in it all day, every day.

Work At Home Online Shopping Scam – A Personal Journey

We have all become painfully aware that the rise of advertising on the internet has reached a furious pace with no end – only growth – in sight. Many online businesses are capitalizing on this upward trend by appealing to the “work from home market” to jump on the band wagon and capture some of this lucre for yourself. Unfortunately most of these schemes are a scam. This post will describe how this works based on a personal experience. In today’s job scarce economy this humble blogger is not above the fray when it comes to grubbing for dollars. 🙂

It all started with a simple internet search for work from home opportunities. This resulted in a barrage of e-mails for all kinds of “opportunities” and even phone calls.

Are You A Victim of UBE? – Unsolicited Bulk Email

Unsolicited Bulk Emails or UBE, more commonly known as SPAM, is on the rise. Not only do these unwanted emails continue to clog our inboxes and junk mail folders but they are becoming harder to eliminate. This article will examine where many of these emails come from and how you can reduce them by offering, what I hope you will consider, some handy tips.

What Happened To Our Privacy?

The short answer is that we gave it away sometimes unwillingly or unwittingly.

It was less than a decade ago that people were alarmed to learn that they were legally being spied upon in retail store changing rooms and in the workplace.

A lot has changed since the late 90s. We are now observed on the street where, we are told that the expectation of privacy is non-existent, in retail stores where every gaze is carefully scrutinized not to mention those loyalty cards that monitor our purchases and most intrusively on the internet.